Hello, Delissa, and welcome back to Flightthrough Entirety, the
only Doctor Who podcast still without a catchphrase after 200
episodes, but we're leaning towards marvellous.
I'm Nathan.
I'm Todd.
I'm Peter.
I'm feeling pretty fantastic for this one too.
Well, we've flown all the way through the entirety of the 1st era
of Doctor Who's 21st century incarnation, and so it's time to
pause, regroup, and reassess before we head off into the wilds of
the Stephen Moffatt era.
Ladies and gentlemen, and trees and multiforms.
Welcome to the Russell T. Davis retrospective.
I want to start with the deepest questions possible.
So it's time for a Snog Marrier boy.
I want my bit of Mary Tam's cake that's been in the fridge for 200
years, if this is our anniversary.
So Snog, Mary, avoid.
Planet of Dead, waters of Mars, the end of time.
I'm going to snog the end of time because it's fun, but I don't
think it has that much staying power and I imagine it'd grow
tiresome after, you know, quite a while.
I want to marry, um, Planet of the Dead, because I just think it's
terrifically fun, uh, and I will never grow weary of it, and I
want to avoid waters of Mars.
Well, I concur completely with you.
Anyone else?
Well, I think you'd quite like to marry Planet of the Dead, because
who wouldn't want to lie in the sun all day long?
Yeah, I'm not slogging those flies.
Okay, so for this retrospective, we are looking at not only Russet
T. Davies, but obviously David Tennant and Christopher Eccleston's
time on the show, and I actually put some questions out on Twitter
to some of our listeners, so they're going to be in the mix as
well, so get ready for them.
And we may as well start off with one.
Professor Quitemes.
Pete Lambert, ask this question.
Why didn't he sound Scottish?
I think you know the answer to this, don't you, Richard?
Oh, because RTD said he's not going to be rattling up and down the
M4 with accent.
He's not reliving Dodo's career.
But wasn't it also that he's supposed to absorb the character of
his, of whom, with whom he is and his most emotional bond and at
that point, that was cockney tooths and Billy Piper.
I think there's dialogue, Cartram, the Christmas invasion, isn't
there?
To that end?
Something like that.
But I think it was.
We're not doing a showcase of Britain's regional accents, was kind
of the idea.
Also, it was a little bit weird, doctor from Scotland filmed in
Wales.
It's like.
I think he would have been better off without it, because I think
he's sort of quite brooding and sexy in Broadchurch, and I just
think that the accent hampers him, and the accent seems to get
worse and worse as he goes on.
I think Moffat puts a lovely bubble around it, doesn't he?
Calling him Dick Van Dyke.
It's also Russell's vision of the show is very London centric
which is why, you know, you're always visiting London landmarks
and things like that.
And so I think it was only natural extension once you'd lost
Eccleston to go for a very London doctor.
Yeah.
I think that Russell just thought, well, David's such a big fan.
He's going to be coming back to do every single special from now
into eternity.
So just as a bit of perverse fun, I'm going to force him to
actually have an English accent, even when he's 80, you know
coming back to do these specials.
That's my take on the whole thing.
It's a bit of, it's a bit of fun from Russell.
It's the accent that he does in Casanova as well, I think, which
was kind of his audition piece.
Yeah, And I think that's actually the reason we've got it because
it was, you know, it was trial and worked for that.
And also, I do find him a little bit difficult to follow in the
same way that I found Dearest Sylvester that I, at the time, was
begging for the DVD, so I could actually understand what he was
saying back in the early 90s.
And even with Capaldi, I have moments of what?
I think the Americans have that same that same problem.
I think that's right that maybe you wanted to channel David from
Casanova because that was a very sexy take on that character and I
think you needed some of that vibrant young energy for the role.
Yeah.
Speaking of sexy.
Stephen Alexander has asked this question.
It's definitely implied that the 10th doctor has sex at some
point.
Have any of the previous doctors had sex?
I don't know, are we talking about members of the crew?
I don't know, Peter, are we?
Other cast members?
God, I'm just thinking of our dear Billy Hartnall and his... and
that very fluffy monoptera.
It's come here, the commander of the ark.
We know what they were doing in that security kitchen.
Look, I choose to think that only pre-hearten or doctors have had
sex.
Ah, okay.
But certainly they often want to have sex and quite visibly so, I
think.
I think Astrid was someone who appealed very much to the doctor
and he can barely keep his hands off her.
And Judith Paris, I think, was probably in considerable moral
danger as well.
Absolutely.
The 6th doctor lingered a little while in front of those nappy men
before running away.
He did with a massive safety pin betwixt his front teeth.
This episode will never air.
But Tom was definitely polishing his rock collection as soon as
Eltrad made her appearance, didn't he?
He was definitely getting out his boy's own crystal radio set
wasn't he?
tuning her up. you know, with Chris Eccleston and Jabe in end...
Dynamic stuff.
Definitely got some wood on for that one.
No idea where I'm going with that.
So okay, so we're talking about David Tennant, obviously, and what
he has brought to the role.
As we sit here now at the end of his era, watch your feelings
towards him and what you've discovered in this rewatch.
I think David Tennant is wonderful.
I mean, I know he's a little bit polarising.
There are, you know, amongst this podcast as well.
You know, we don't always rate his performance, but I think he
delivers every time.
And there was something about his performance that was so
accessible to the general public, that the series profile and
popularity just went through the roof when he was the doctor.
And I think that he is a big part of that.
So not only was he a very good accessible doctor, which may be a
reason why diehard fans, myself included, don't rate him amongst
one of the best because he's quite broad.
There was something about his charisma that really elevated the
series, and you could see it on British television when he was the
doctor.
He was everywhere.
He was around talk shows, sketch shows.
He would host comedy shows and things.
You couldn't get away from him so much so that when the end of
time went out and he was on the Christmas I dent.
People started to question, is there too much, David Tennant
because he was all over the place?
And I think he was so good for the series, and so competent and so
kind of invested in the series that it would be churlish to take
anything away from him.
I think that's a hugely underrated part of the job is the job of
being an ambassador for the show on TV.
And the 1st season didn't have that.
Like Eccleston gave a sort of fairly reluctant interview, which is
on the DVDs, but obviously he'd kind of left the production in a
sort of sort of fairly unhappy frame of mind.
And did turn up on Blue Peter that wants to surprise some little
kitties, which I love him for.
Okay, wonderful.
I haven't seen that.
But Tennant does a brilliant job of that.
And he's just whip smart and charming and like super likeable and
I think he does it really, very well.
And he's one of us.
He's a fan, you know, he can tell you a curse of Peladon from your
monster of Peladon.
He amazing.
He makes a monoid joke in the... in the in the commentary on
Forest of the Dead that was released at the time, which can be
found somewhere on the FDA website.
It's wonderful.
He does this little trick with his ping pong balls popping them
out, does he?
That's it.
I've seen that movie.
Yes.
Richard, what do you think of David?
Oh, I'm rattling up and down the M1 and M4 as well.
I look at the time.
I thought he was glorious for all the reasons that you're saying
he does glow on screen in a way.
I mean, Tom described pertly as being incandescent.
I think you can say the same for our David, and he does that very
consciously and with great, with great a sense of tactics in the
way he approaches the role.
It's like I'm watching a war gamer.
He definitely knows what he's doing.
And there's a lot of, especially in the last, in these last story
the end of time, which, you know, is really just a, it's a big end
soap, isn't it?
There's a, yeah, I know we just did that this last 2 weeks, but
it's, he manages it where it's actually a very difficult thing to
do when you've got all of this hoop plug going on and it's really
Barnum and Bailey.
So to maintain gravitas during all of this, I think if we hadn't
had burner cribbons, it wouldn't have worked.
And I think that's actually the case with a lot of David's
performances.
They're a little too much for me at the time and watching them
again.
I really am with Stephen Moffatt.
Maybe it was, maybe it's the accent.
I don't, but I just maybe just also think that's the way Mr
Tennant approaches things.
But if it weren't for Billy and Catherine and Freema, Definitely
Bernard Cribbens, he seems to work best or be at his most, how can
I put it, his most soluble, because otherwise I find him quite
brittle.
He's actually like a bit of shellac and you don't really want that
in your mouth, do you?
It's like biting a bit of old furniture.
He's just so he's sort of brittle.
It should be like toffee, but it's actually kind of tastes quite
unpleasant once you've got him close.
It's just the way that his brittleness of his acting.
But he's one of those people that works best against a very good
professional.
So Russell definitely could see, I feel, his strengths and
weaknesses, and you need someone as subtle as Russell is, who is
all about the empathy with his performers to get that right.
So yes, I feel that when we talk about tenant, we really need to
talk about the so-called supporting cast.
And also after Eccleston, who I think was very important to bring
the actor back to the doctor, make sure that there was a good
actor and a subtle actor playing him, you then needed to show that
the doctor could still be a showman.
And that's what David brings to the role as well.
He's a very good actor, but he's also a showman on and offscreen.
I've been surprised at the rewatch at how much I've actually
enjoyed his performances.
And I think, I mean, Nathan, you're nodding ahead, but it's one of
the things that I really discovered that it was far less annoying
than I had in my head, and I just was constantly surprised at how
effortless and enjoyable he was to actually watch.
And perhaps I only got a bit tired towards the end of his doctor.
But certainly in that middle season, you know, 2 and 3 in the
beginning of four, I really just was surprised at how much I was
just enjoying him.
I think that's my experience as well.
I think I may have said before.
I always find him much better than I expect him to be.
And he never lets you down either.
If there's a big moment which needs to be killed or whatever, he
does it, the scenes I can think of where I don't think he delivers
the best performance is always because the materials let him
down.
Right.
So I'm thinking of that scene at the end of the doctor's daughter
where he has to become really overwrought and the gun and I never
would and all of that, very, very hard to pull off.
Has a good stab at it though.
Yeah, I think, I mean, I've said before in the last year that
Waters of Mars, for instance, that performance at the end, like
giving him the teeth acting opportunities, that that gives him
that's a bad choice.
Like, I do find that really alienating an off-putting.
It is the era of the teeth, isn't it?
A rich maximum toothiness in turn left, didn't we?
That wasn't him, was it?
Bob Ghibli. has asked a question, which relates to this, and I'm
just paraphrasing this one, which 10th doctor scenes would have
been more impactful, logical dramatic if Eccleston had stayed on
to the end of time.
Do you think he could have pulled off any of these scenes any
better than Tape?
It's a difficult question to answer.
I think they just would have been different, really.
I think that it's very clear that we're writing for a different
doctor and we've given some thought to what David Tennant can do
and how his performance is different from Christopher's
performance.
And I can refer the listeners and it'll be in the show notes to
Elle Sander's essay on the idiot's lantern where she talks about a
particular scene and how Tennant tackled it and how Eccleston
would have tackled it differently.
And I just think there's no time during the tenant era where I'm
sitting there thinking I wish Chris had been here to do this.
Bob's question that I was going to actually ask, was at what point
do you stop seeing Eccleston as the doctor within the scripts of
series 2 or 3 or maybe four?
Following up to that, I don't see Eccleston at all.
It's just David's there and they're tailored to him and that's my
take on it.
I really don't.
Exactly.
A good actor will take whatever the material is.
This is the point.
A writer may have one.
Possibly if he's expansive, 2 or 3 variants on how he or she feels
the performance will develop, but that's nothing to the almost
infinite variety of performances that a good actor will give
anything.
I could see Eccleston really developing in this, but let's not
underestimate his great fine skill.
He's, I feel as a person, but of course I don't know him, but
having watched his interviews and how Eccleston has responded to
things over the years.
I think he's a deeply sensitive, fraught man, and I think he would
have really, if he'd felt nurtured.
And if he'd felt safe in the production, I think he always felt
safe with RTD, I believe his loyalty was still there with RTD, it
was simply everything else that I hopes that's the case. anyway
perhaps I'm wrong.
But I feel I have got a handle on how Eccleston works, having
watched him for so many years, and I think he would have been
fantastic, quote, to the end of this.
His emotional range would have given the benefit of...
Yeah, I certainly am not saying that I would have been sorry to
see another year of Eccleston or another, you know, 3 or 4 years
of Eccleston.
I would have been absolutely fine with that because I think he is
fantastic. feel he would have developed.
He's, you know, his awkwardness with humour, it appeared.
But that was also the role he was playing as a war veteran.
He certainly had has the capacity and the empathy as an actor to
do this. that thawing process.
And if Billy had lasted the, who knows?
I mean, maybe Billy wouldn't have so many, so many variables.
I really would have liked to have seen him with Freema.
I think we would have had a closer bond.
We know offset. we all know as it's pretty much the public realm
that there was tenants discomfort with something about Freema's
casting or the role or whatever it was.
And I think that would have been really interesting to see
Eccleston's take on that.
I don't believe that would have been there.
Because one thing that made me very uncomfortable with the tenant
era is watching his ego just go up like the Hindenburg.
And I think that those in scenes are really just giving him the
chance to deflate. defeat slowly.
I think it wasn't so much a script issue as a structural problem
with the characters.
So I think Rose is developed to work with the ninth doctor and
doesn't work as well with the 10th doctor, and they get by on it
because David and Billy have great chemistry, and so they prove
very popular, but Rose is a character is problematic, I think, with
the 10th doctor, and that aura of smugness that is sometimes
commented on is because they're both big, vibrant, bright
characters, and David's doctor, I think, needed something else
which they then got right to differing degrees. with Martha and
Donna.
Yeah, it's funny.
There's a kind of, there is a version of RTD's era that didn't
happen, which you can kind of see them working towards, like 1st
with Chris leaving and then with Billy leaving.
There's clearly some sort of plan about there being some kind of
comeuppance.
Like that, the smugness in series 2 is like one shoe dropping and
you're waiting for something to happen and maybe doomsday pays
that off, but not quite.
And, you know, like there's what would have happened had Billy
stayed on for series 3.
Like there's the fun thing about TV. is that even though nowadays
it's an hauteurs medium, you know, like you have someone who
brings a vision to the show, there's still production that happens
and kind of makes people...
Yeah, it makes people change their plans.
But I do think there's kind of, you know, like a sort of
archeologist could rake through that era and kind of find the
evidence for sort of paths not taken as a result of those sort of
production issues.
Joe Ford says, what is the magical formula of relatable characters
that neither of the showrunners since have managed to capture?
More of a comment than a question.
Yeah.
You controversial?
I just think it's Russell.
Do you know what I mean?
I think that Moffatt isn't interested in creating characters in
quite the same way that Russell is.
Russell's creating a soap opera and the soap opera has a coherent
world. 10 year olds can learn facts about the world.
All of the RTD era takes place in the same universe.
Love all of that.
Yeah, it's wonderful, isn't it?
And he gives us this old fans things that we can bring to it, but
he gives new fans like fun things to know about the world.
There's a coherency to this era.
And in that world.
There's space for characters to breathe.
And you can't, like, there's no way of imagining a journey's end
that takes place in the Moffat era because who would be there?
It's having family.
That's right.
We've got Rose's family.
Martha's family, Donna's family.
The Sarah Jane Adventures family.
Yeah.
Right?
The Torchwood family.
He keeps creating all these families that are all interconnected
ultimately and are drawn together.
And maybe the word is there's a mum.
Well, it's what Nathan said about Russell's background in soap.
You know, he was reared in soap.
He had his own high-end soap, the grand.
I don't think Moffat, to my knowledge, ever worked on soap.
Coupling's the closest to ever god, isn't it?
Yeah, rom-com.
That's your background is rom-com.
And that's still a very externalised, as you might say, Peter.
It's a very external way of writing.
Whereas I believe RTD is entirely, entirely internal, and his
thinking is extremely empathetic.
Think about how you watch a soap.
There are a lot of characters there and you know what their deal
is and you know something of their history and it comes up and it
affects other things that happen later in the program.
And that's how we watch Doctor Who.
It's how Star Trek people watch Star Trek.
It's how Star Wars people watch Star Wars, you know.
But the Moffite is not like that.
And it doesn't aspire to be like that.
It's not a fault.
But you couldn't have had an episode like Love and Monsters or
Turn left in the Moffat era because both of those stories go back
and revisit things that have happened in the world up until this
point.
But Moffatt doesn't create a world like that.
He only has the sort of regular characters, really, and river
perhaps, and missy eventually, to play with.
He doesn't create a world full of people that we get to know.
Even in series 10, which is all kind of said in the one place and
he has the opportunity to do it.
He doesn't really do it or series 8, set in the school, never
creates a real world.
That's right.
He tries to bring in characters, like he brings in Clara's, I
think, father and grandmother.
Is it Clara's father in time of the doctor?
And they make no impression at all because that's not what he's
interested in.
But also when you look at soap, soaps are all about character and
character interaction.
I think family is the nucleus of that.
And so the big changes in soaps are not when there's a dramatic
event, or when they have a new character, it's when a new family
comes in.
Yeah.
I hadn't really thought of that.
It's like the Kennedy suddenly arriving in Ramsey Street, isn't
it?
When the Joneses appear at the beginning of series three.
That's right.
And it changes the entire dynamic of the show because you have all
of these new characters and interactions.
It's why they always used to say in EastEnders.
I can't remember who the character was, but the door was always
open for this character to come back because they still had all
the connections.
They still had family members.
They still had exes.
They still had all of these storylines that they could drop into
and pick up straight away.
Whereas what doesn't work is when you bring back a legacy
character and they don't have the connections which they had in
the old show.
It's like 1st day at school, isn't it?
Everyone's trying to find their feed.
It's very awkward.
Am I saying Mr. Moffatt's writing is awkward?
Well, I don't know.
We're not there yet.
Are we?
I think that he is trying to do something different.
And I think we underestimate how incredibly different his version
of Doctor Who is.
How difficult that was and how clever it was.
I love his one-off stories in this era.
I mean, we were all saying 1st time around. these are the best.
Do you remember this?
These are the best of RTD's era. and they were all Mr. Moffatt
stories.
I don't think they're the best of RTDs here.
But I do think they are extremely good, and I certainly think I'm
not willing to fight very hard against the contention that they're
the best of the era.
They are extremely good.
Well, what's Russell's best story then?
Todd?
Nathan, Peter, what do you feel were his best if we're putting
them up against Moffat?
Oh, yeah.
We're talking about internalised writing.
Goodness.
You know, the Dalek 2 parter at the end of series one.
Oh, love and to death. amazing.
The one with all those game shows.
I mean, that's extraordinary.
It turns on a dime.
It's very Russell with all those game shows and that becomes a big
old, mostly traditional series finale and Russell can do them both
with consummate ease.
And it is this sort of look at us.
This is us.
We now include all of the rest of television.
We own TV.
Just as Billy did in episode one back in 63 when he pointed at the
monitor.
Yeah, we thus up there.
It's us Yeah.
Told what you said as well.
Turn left and midnight.
I think they're just such a showcase for Russell because one is
written with plenty of time to spare and thought about sort of how
the series is structured around it and how it's going to fit in.
One, midnight is written at the very last minute as a replacement
and both of them are phenomenal.
So whatever pressures are on Russell, he always delivers
something.
Green fingered librarian, Simon Hart, asks this question.
What do you think of the RTD season formula?
Is it tiresome or does it work well?
I think it works wonderfully well.
I love having the past, present, future.
You've got an early 2 parter, a late 2 parter.
There's a structure there for 5 seasons because, of course, Stephen
also takes that through, and it harks back to what we're used to
as classic series fan.
You look at the perch we era with, you know, 24 partters and and
36 parters, and then most of Tom Baker's era, you know, lots of
four-partters and a 6 parter at the end.
And it's the rhythm of it.
You know, when you're planning season arcs and putting things in
he'll he'll put in things like, you know, Mr. Saxon at certain
points and it just flows so well.
What he wants to do with the show based on that consistency and
structure and as much as we'd love to have like different things
all the time and talk about, oh, let's change it up.
I think having that underlying it really sets up the show as
something that you can just drop in and drop out off.
I think it's super, super clever.
And the problem space is massive.
The big problem with Doctor Who is that because it can be anywhere
like literally anywhere, anything, it risks being formless or not
about anything, right?
And so this structure ensures that we come back to earth, like, you
know, a couple of times a season, it ensures that we have a range
of tones, you know, that early two parter is always like the
return of a big Toyantic monster or something like that.
Like it's light, and it's populist, and then we have some dark
things towards the end and sort of a cheap one in episode 11 and
you know, like a big finale with Daleks or Sidemen or the master.
It is deeply, intuitively clever.
I wonder how much he's actually put thought into this because it
goes back to what we've talked about on the podcast before.
The mammalian need for structure and repetition, which again, if
what is that but a family, a cohesive central unit in which to
that familiarity that makes us loyal to this body of work.
And I think there's variety built into it as well.
Like there is variety build into it.
So even though episodes foreign 5 are the same sort of thing each
year.
They're still all vastly different from them.
You've always got a neris, won't you?
Yeah, that's right.
Also, I think it's comforting for kids.
Kids internalise that kind of thing where they sort of know that
there's a big season finale coming up or isn't it about time for a
two-parter and it helps you with kind of accessibility with the
series.
And when I think Stephen rightly breaks the formula for series 6
it may have a little bit to do with the slightly cooler reaction
to that season, because suddenly it's not the formula that, you
know, suddenly we're opening with a 2 parter, and there's a break
in the middle and you get a 2nd opener, and it just, it slightly
puts you at odds.
I certainly think that he made the right decision to do what he
does in the series 5 and follow it.
And he subverts it all the way through.
He's he follows the basic structure, but does massively different
things with it.
I mean, compare the early 2 parter in series five.
It's much darker and scarier than the corresponding early two
parters in Russell's seasons.
He does an opener, but it's nowhere near as light.
Fluffy.
Yeah, it's not fluffy or light. funny in places, but it's actually
you know, properly serious.
And his finale, while it has the Daleks in it, is very, very
strange and very, very unlike any of the previous finales.
But he's right to follow it.
And I think that Moffat does have a problem trying to structure
the seasons and you can see him lurch from idea to idea throughout
his run.
I mean, he almost in his last season, he kind of almost sort of
reverts to the traditional RTD structure.
I also like the fact that, although we've got all these different
themes running through as well as part of this structure, like, you
know, you hear about Bad Wolf, and then you've got like Torchwood
and Mr. Saxon, and you are not alone, they don't overwhelm the
individual stories throughout the season, so you can drop in and
drop out as a casual viewer throughout all of those 4 series, even
towards the end with, you know, the bees and the Dr. Donna. their
little touches, their words that are said, but we're not locked
into. there's a crack in the wall.
Do you know what I mean?
not a physical thing.
It's just a word that is you. used.
And as somebody watching you is obviously pick up when that is
said, but it only really comes into play into the finales, if at
all.
I mean, you look at torchwood and how that's seeded, but really
it's a setting at the end of that season.
And even the cybermen in that 2nd series, like it's not like, well
the cybermen are coming back, you know, they just happen to be
there as the villains at the end.
We're not overwhelmed by these things.
Like people talk about the fact that, I mean, you look at Buffy
the Vampire Slayer, and you look at other shows similar that have
these season-long villains, really...
Is that really in play?
I don't, it's not really at all.
You know, they, yeah, the Daleks are back at the end of season one
and there's links and as I just said, the cybermen, even the
master, then at the end. and Daros, but they're not overwhelming
the rest of it.
And he and you've talked about this.
He reimagines those classic iconic villains and monsters for a new
audience and he takes all that we love and brings out new and
interesting aspects.
I mean, especially the master.
Like the way he develops that, but still nods back to the past.
And I was not at the time that happy.
Oh, it's too over the top.
It's to whatever.
But now looking back on it, I can see what he's doing and I
appreciate it so much more.
Russell always has one eye on the Saturday night audience.
He knows that the show has to be populist and easily accessible
and yet he knows that it's got a broad fan base, and so really
he's writing for himself because he is a massive fan, and he is
also a very populist writer who knows how to deliver drama for a
wide audience.
And I think we were very lucky to get him and combine that because
the best of his era is that you can have quite a contained self
referential episode, followed by an enormous crowd pleaser, but
both of them are accessible to the general audience.
Okay, so Snorg, marry, avoid.
Pete Tyler, Jeffrey Noble, Clive Jones.
Oh, to be honest, we won't marry any of them.
You wouldn't want to marry any of them?
No.
Well, most of them don't have much longevity in them, do they?
You're not on for the long haul, are you?
I might give in to my latent Toronto Ophelia and snog all of
them.
Oh, yeah.
How latent is that, Peter?
Pretty late.
Nathan?
Well, there's probably only enough time for a snog with Jeffrey
Noble, to be honest.
And I might get a fiver off him if you're lucky.
At least one quid.
We're going with this.
I like to spend the evening with him just to get to know him.
Yeah.
Let the doctor earn that fiver.
I actually have a bit of a soft spot for the actor who plays Clive
so I'm going to marry him.
That would be great because you get Matrona Carney thrown in as
well.
That's right.
He knows all about the rock.
You know, like I'd be able to get my nails done with Annalise, you
know, and have your brain transplanted into everybody.
I still haven't forgiven him for mine walk.
I'm avoiding him.
And I shall marry Pete for the money.
Trust me on this.
No, actually, he's a very nice person too.
So, um, Snog Mary avoid.
Oh this is another one.
Trisha Delaney, Annalise or Neris.
Well, Trisha's got a bit of fat though, has he?
smells much longer.
No, well, Russell is.
That's another thing.
It really does actually.
There's heaps of, like, and clearly he's a large man.
Oh, he's very sensitive about his.
Yeah, yeah.
It's a tendency to run to fat and also just being a gay man as
well and all of the weird body image stuff that we end up with.
So he does quite a lot of fat shaming.
And the, uh, the, my favourite one is the Slovene, because they
actually just have fat man's bellies, like they look like, you
know, fossil.
Look like Phil Collinson after a weekend on the booze, but he
hasn't got to the gym yet.
Oh, sorry, Phil.
Annalise and Neris.
He really does write to archetypes, doesn't he?
I writes them so well.
They're wonderful, aren't they?
I just narris is so funny and it's partly just because Catherine
Tate is the one saying her name.
So good.
Analise is amazing.
You're totally snorganalise, but you'd never marry her because
she'd have your money in no time.
Oh, yeah, yeah.
Oh, she's terrific.
Such a shame she never came back.
I would have loved it. shame, isn't it?
Been great to see her in that year of hell.
You know, maybe she became a resistance leader or something.
Oh, I just wanted to see her and Francine with the missiles going
off all around them.
I would have loved to have seen her and Neres in serving made
outfits, giving them mastery's drinks and not looking really happy
about it. so good.
Come on, RTD.
Yeah.
Oh, right, so we're avoiding Trisha Delaney.
We're snogging and Elise, but we're going to marry now.
We're marrying Maris.
No, Rich.
Because you don't only get nerished.
You get friends with Nereris.
Okay, so there's some of the guest stars, or non guest stars, as
the case may be.
Who's your favourite one off guest star during the RTD era?
Is there something that pops into your mind?
I'd say River song.
Wow.
If she had only been a one and I'm quite serious about this, if
she had only been a one off guest star, there's I love that it
gives fans and casual viewers, I would hope as well, a way in to
the writing.
I think it's a really nice way of getting a young person.
I'm thinking of all of us at around the age that Russell was and
Capaldi and all of these people were starting to write fan, Tenant
was writing it as well, wasn't he?
That's a lovely inn for a child and a little girl to be sitting
there because I love that it's a female character.
And yeah, we know it's, we later see how this paradigm just goes
on and on and on.
And I mean, the way that I keep talking about the Moffat era, and
I wonder why I'm doing that, probably because it's so
comfortable.
The RTD one just feels so familiar and so easy that it's um, I'm
finding it hard to find, I won't say flaws, but critiquing it.
It's a very comfortable sofa to be sitting in.
RDD.
That's not fat shaming.
That's just saying it's comfy.
But yeah, it's an inn.
It gives us an opportunity to do, to do the thinking, to work in
with the narrative, and I think it's always a shame with long, long
shows that's kind of taken away, and, you know, I don't like the
thinking done for me.
I like the old style of having to do the work.
Alex Kingston is spectacularly good that one.
Yeah.
Yeah, really great.
Miss Evangelistic, because of that story is actually probably one
of my favourites as well for the questions that she poses.
But anyway, I can't bring a face to mind.
Stop.
I think if I was given another half hour, I'd probably think of a
dozen, but the person who comes to mind is Ida Scott, played by
Claire Ashbrook.
Yeah, we keep crying for the interesting women, don't we?
She's brilliant.
She's lovely.
Yeah, she's really nice and she works so well going back to what
we were saying earlier with David Tennant.
That moment in the caves with the snow and when she's down there
outside his massive pit and she's just standing there with David.
David's so good when again, when he's got someone really
extraordinary to work against, then we see his subtlety.
That's right.
And she um, she is a big part of that two-part story, which I
adore that story.
She's at sort of heart and soul.
And even in amongst all of the action going on, which kind of, you
know, killer Oud and the devil coming back and everything, the
most impressive parts are the 2 handers with her and David, they
just talk about the meaning of life and faith.
And, you know, it's a rare character that can come in and make you
want more of them.
There were plans to bring her back, which never came tuition, and
I think were worse off for that.
She's Bernard Cribben's in a Tintin space suit, isn't it?
Love those orange spacesuits.
Nathan.
I'm going to say Leslie Sharp in midnight.
Oh, phenomenal.
Yeah, and again, you know, we don't get too much of her before
she's taken over. but she is brittle and isolated, but you can see
her warming to the doctor, and it is that trick that Russell does
which is just sketching a character very, very quickly.
And so she does become a character in a very, very short amount of
time.
And then just the technical virtuosity of what she and David
Tennant do in that episode, the big special effect in that episode
is the acting.
And she is amazing.
She is so good as the villain in that.
So terrifying, just unbelievably great.
There's a special, what's the word?
Piquancy.
When, whenever Russell casts someone who's been a major part of
one of his previous series.
So when you get Jessica Hines coming in to play, essentially, the
doctor's wife for those 2 partters, it's big casting and there's a
resonance there because of that connection with Russell.
And I think Leslie Sharp is the same because she was one of the
leads in the 2nd coming.
Yeah she's Judith.
Yeah, up against Christopher Eccleston's 2nd coming of Jesus.
And it's an incredible role.
And if you haven't seen it.
If you haven't seen it, you should stop listening to this podcast
immediately and go and watch it.
It's like aliens of London in a way.
But it's about the 2nd coming of Christ, and it's Christopher
Eccleston, and it has amazing things to say about religion and
faith, and just the most surprising conclusion, and Leslie Sharp
is absolutely at the heart of it.
She's wonderful.
This is why he could write it so quickly, midnight, because every
good writer, director relies on his ensemble cast, knowing what
they'll be able to deliver in such with such brevity, if you like
of character development.
He just trusts that they'll fill in and fulminate in the parts.
This is like watching really good rep.
Maybe that's what TV is now.
Those old touring theatre companies that Liz Sladen came from.
And I think Lou Jameson did as well, didn't she?
that they've different parts every week and performing.
He knew.
Yeah, that's why that's maybe that's why midnight works so well.
And when Russell Russell works really, really well when he's got
no time and just knows he has to rely on his inner talent and his
performers.
It is a theatre piece, isn't it?
I mean, if you're a very skilled group of actors, you could
performer.
You could do it on an empty set, doesn't need very much.
And the series name which was eluding me in addition to the 2nd
coming is Bob and Rose.
Oh, yeah.
Leslie was one of the leads in that.
And I don't know, just when this performer that Russell trusts, he
gives them a big important role and they deliver every time.
I guess I'm going to go with Probably Madame de Pompadour.
Because I really, I think in that 40 minutes or whatever, it's for
me probably the 1st time that somebody makes such an impact
totally as a one-off character.
It's almost like Rose takes a backseat in that episode.
Yeah, 0 yeah.
Yeah.
The other one I consider is Stanley Sparrow.
Notice I've chosen Stephen Moffatt episodes.
And you've just mentioned Jessica Hine from The Scarecrow 2
parter.
We're all choosing these really strong women who play off the
doctor.
And don't forget your favourite as well from Fear Her, the old
woman in the street.
They've taken the children.
Remember that?
She's one of your favourites.
Oh yes.
Much like the doctor's daughter as well.
Okay, so monsters.
I want to talk about this for a moment.
I mentioned earlier, we're talking a bit about Russell reimagining
old classic series, monsters and villains.
What's your favourite or the most successful you think of all the
ones that he's brought back, Macra?
Sylvia.
Sylvia, definitely, yeah.
I'm going to say the cyberman.
Because the cybermen are brought back in the 60s with this weird
sort of kit peddler fear that, you know, your pacemaker would turn
you into an unfeeling robot.
So they don't have really anything that they're about in the 60s
and it's very soon, they become, you know, absence of the Daleks
it's kind of like, we'll have the side men in this because, you
know, Terry's gone off to LA.
And then in the 80s, they're just sort of big shouty robots.
I think they're actually the most in a way if you want to talk
about what the 60s to the 80s is about.
They're the Nietzsque paradigm, they're the Uber Mensch, and a big
big warning because they're the bland, they're the face of
neoliberalists.
They are thatch of Reagan, Kissinger, Nixon, economics.
Well, we'll get to that when we talk about the Slovene later
because I think they're absolutely the face.
You're right.
They're the Tories we actually would like to have lunch with
but...
And that's even unfair on the Tories because the Tories were
changed by all of this as well.
I think they actually end up being very interesting, but you're
right, because they're only a cypher.
See what I did there?
They're only they're cypher men.
So he tries to reinvent them.
So he replaces, you know, upside down earth with Malaysia, with a
parallel universe, and he gives them something, and it is a sort
of slightly boomer and slightly dated conception, but the idea
that we're turning into cybermen by participating in the same
media, living so much of our lives online.
And so that gives them something to be about.
And then I think the other reinvention, the other aspect of the
reinvention is where the entire population of London marches into
Battersea Power Station to be sawn up and turn into Cyberman.
Like I just think putting the cybermen in London so that as you go
past that building on the train, you remember that that's where
cybermen come from.
So I think the cybermen are sort of a bit crummy and classic who
and I think he does a very, very good job of reinventing them and
making them work.
And also Battersea Power Station is now being turned into a high
end soulless flat.
So I mean, nothing changes.
Oh, but it's okay because when we get to the Dalek invasion of
Earth, look at this.
I'm going to go with the autons.
Oh, because they're such a perennially good idea.
And we sort of had them twice in the early 70s and they were
excellent both times.
Bob Holmes was writing them, and it just seemed after the fact
such a natural idea to use them to bring the series back because
that image loomed large in the public consciousness.
And they're just such a great idea.
It's incredible that we haven't revisited them since.
I know we had a little bit of them in kind of the Pandoric are
open, so that's not an auton story.
What we really need now is a big two-part auton story playing to
their strengths.
It would be like Spearhead from Space all over again. written by
Chris Chipner.
Well, you know what?
I think that might play to his strengths because he's a bit of a
70s, babe, and he has strong memories of that.
And so I think if he's going to succeed, maybe that would be the
vehicle to do it.
And thinking back to his Iurian story, he could just go back and
read the novel.
That's true.
You could do worse than a two-part based on the novel of spearhead
from space.
You know, one of the very 1st kind of leaks from the production
that I ever saw back in 2005 or 2004 was that there would be
autons in bridal dresses and it could always have happened.
You know, it could always have happened in Spearhead from space
but just the fact that it happens in rows, you know, having Jackie
attacked by autumns in bridal dresses is so great.
So brilliant.
And it's a shame because it's not, it doesn't come off all that
well.
It's not staged particularly well, but the potency of the idea.
It's amazing.
I think I'll go with the Daleks.
I just that bringing back that sound.
I can already hear it now.
Womp, warm.
Thank you, Chomp.
But also just the way in which they can levitate, they can not be
shot, blown up by, you know, a few shots.
I'm thinking back to series one now.
I just think that them in series one was just all that they needed
to be.
In their started late career, share Mad Max bronze leather look.
Yes.
It's just like one of it.
You can just see the fireworks going off on one of her stage
presentations, can't you?
They're a bit share like, aren't they?
How long have they been around?
A long, long.
Just one touch by Billy Piper turns them into a powerful enemy.
I'm not saying we'd been there with Chris Evans, but...
Well, it's time for a house party and it's the monsters house
party.
So who are you going to invite?
The jujune or the Centaurants?
What's different?
Yeah.
One's hornier.
I think I like the Jadoon more than the Santarans.
I'm, uh, I think I think the Santarians have been spoiled for me.
Although Chris Ryan, you know, he's pretty cool, but the Jadoon, a
lot of leather, you know, I'm sure that we'd find something to
do.
They'd make good door bitches because they've got those things
where they can mark your hand once you entered.
The weeping angels or the Crillitains?
Well, they get rid of, if you live in an old house, the
acryletines would certainly get rid of all your unwanted pets
wouldn't they?
Weeping angels?
I don't know.
I love the idea of hide and seek.
Now that's a house party.
The oud or the adipose?
Well, I think that some hybrid, the Udipose, the Udipose.
The Ud could just bring you food, and then you would eventually
produce your own adipose, I would think.
But would they bring you food or would they would their eyes turn
red and they would start a war against God?
Well, only if you deserved it though.
The lady Cassandra or the face of Beau?
I love the lady cassette.
No, we all know where we're going with this, don't we?
Do you think it's the same character?
Do you think that eventually she got a face stretch so much that
it fitted over the bow frame?
That means that Jack is actually Cassandra.
Isn't like, she's kind of the 1st villain, isn't she really?
And she's so great.
She's so funny and wonderful.
I just remember kids in class. you know, like, because this was so
huge.
Yeah, yeah, shedding out moisturise me and stuff as a joke.
I mean, just just so brilliant.
Also, if you're going to have a house party, you want someone
who's going to sort of stand there and deliver waspish comments
that you can laugh at.
Yeah, I'll give something for the young people to bounce off.
Is that the face of both?
What if they thought, isn't it?
Do you want a weekend with a Dalai Lama sitting on your haunches
you know, exchanging meaningful platitudes, or you just want a
really, there's a lot of really bitchy anecdotes and martinis.
I don't think there's a competition.
The Guelf or the Vashtanarata?
Vashinarada would certainly help you clean up the leftovers.
And then less whiffy.
That's true.
The absorbeloff or the Jaggerfess.
These words, I can't get over.
So good.
You'd have the absorber off.
You could feed unwanted guests to it and you'd go, taste like
chicken.
But again, another whiffy monster, you know, like another farty
Russell monster.
The para vials or the beast?
Richard.
Well, they're both so hot.
I'd go with the pyra vials.
They're better conversationalists.
Exactly.
And told your friend, Madame Pyrevile.
Yes, my friend, thank you, Peter.
And uh, the wire or the Slavene.
Oh, that's a hard one.
Isn't the wire great?
We should have mentioned her in our search.
Most valuable player. thing.
She's wonderful.
And she's played by a good enough actress that she can deliver
evil cackling and it's really quite good.
I think there's just Maureen Lippman as, you know, just sitting
there being herself.
I like it.
James and I did a big rewatch of agony after we did our Idiot's
Lantern episode.
And I just loved her as a kid.
I think she's really super terrific.
But I think the Celine.
I think the Selena, one of the best monsters that Russell's
created, like quite seriously.
I think that they work incredibly well because of the job that
they're doing in the satire that that story's doing.
So it turns out our politicians are just fat, flatulent aliens who
will allow us all to be killed, provided that some people will
make a profit.
And I think, as I said before, it's an absolute blistering satire
of neoliberalism and just having them be childish and silly and
farty and stuff, having them be genuinely funny.
Remember when Margaret Slaven is collecting all of their skin
suits and they hang them up.
And like one of them farts, she goes, oh, you know, that's the
that's the spirit or something.
Like they are, they are so wonderful.
They're so great.
So, yeah, I'm going with the Sabine.
Imagine how Russell would have written for COVID this year.
Yeah, yeah.
I think we would have had him at his bitiest and probably also his
most humourous and you can bet he would have used this Levine.
Yeah, I think that, you know, aliens of London is massively
underrated because I don't think that Doctor Who has done
political satire, like that, like, maybe sort of, doesn't.
Makers, but Hulk isn't as funny.
You know, he just isn't as funny.
So I think that that story is a real achievement.
It's super surprising at every turn and the Savina, a huge part of
that.
And I think it might be a shame that it was one of the few times
that Russell pulled his punches.
They saw the reaction to the slithine, which was not universally
positive.
And I think decided really not to use them again. they kind of get
hived off into a Sarah Jane Adventures monster, which is a shame.
But before they do, we get Boomtown.
And Boomtown is so good with the slithine.
If you've got a good actress playing them and you just have a
single character.
They're amongst the best enemies that we've ever had.
So it's a shame that they don't get used more.
Well, it is that 1st day of filming with the costumes and Keith
Boke.
You know, they were never going to survive that.
It's a big problem.
We do have this listener question that came in.
It's from a Natan Botomli.
And it says, what is the best story of...
What is the best story of the RTD era?
And why is it aliens of London?
Perhaps you can answer or have answered that question?
You probably have.
You have the support of the masses, Nathan.
Everyone agrees with me.
What is the one to watch?
What is the one that you always go back to in this entire era if
you had to sit down?
Impossible planet in the Satan pits?
Wow, okay.
I think it's phenomenally good.
It's such a melding of Russell sensibility with a Hinchcliffe
style story and, you know, a sort of lost evil coming back from
the dead.
And of course, that lovely friend of the podcast, Matt Jones
that's his era, Henchcliffe.
And so we were always going to get that.
And I just think, um, it's the two-parter that's brilliantly
structured and has a really great um, a really great ensemble cast
all of whom you get to know and love.
And I just think it's knockout.
I think it's except for one other, which we will come to.
It is the best story of the new era.
My go to tends to be the series one finale, the two-part finale
for series one.
And it is because of what you were saying before, Peter.
You know, it does those send-ups of TV, um, then it changes to be
like a traditional Doctor Who Dalek story, and inside that Doctor
Who Dalek story, there's Jackie and Mickey playing their part as
well.
It, you know, summarises the era.
It's super confident.
It's incredibly entertaining.
I just think it's magnificent.
It's the one that I watch. maybe more than anything else.
And even within all of the plot that we've got in those stories
and all the big things it does, you still have a brilliant new
character in the form of Linda with a Y.
Yeah, yeah.
She's a great one off too.
Yeah, isn't she?
Richard is there one that leaps to your mind?
I do keep going back to Moffat stories in this era as being just
little jewels, probably because they were just so very different.
They stood as a different dress, a different.
You could really feel that this is someone who has a completely
different way of viewing the series, of viewing the concept than
Russell.
Can I posit as well, Richard?
A story that you've been a very effective champion for, Daleks in
Manhattan.
And you know, the Daleks?
didn't want to.
I am not even a fan of musicals, but I keep going back to it.
Is there an argument that that's the best of the era for you?
It fills the warmest and the most fun.
And if we're talking about this period of writing being about the
familial, the comfy and the, you know, the huge sponge, the
victorious sponge.
It's that one.
I actually think it's because of Miranda Raisin.
She really makes it work and I love her.
She's probably one of my favourite companions in all of the big
Finnish audios and she plays, I mean, she plays lovely RP Wren.
So, of course, we love her and Colin adores her.
So, what's her name again?
Todd in the, have you listened to them yet?
on the, um, the big fishes with, she's just lovely.
Just, just, just, love, love, love, love, love, love, love.
So yeah, no, of course.
I know I keep going back to that. do.
It is, it is really interesting how, like, we're all fans, but we
all have such different opinions, like, if you, if you ask me one
to avoid, that would be the, the one that I would avoid watching.
That one.
Um, against everything else, if you said, I want to put that on, I
would say, I don't really want to watch it, like 9 times out of
10.
So it's really interesting.
Are you going to ask us one to avoid because it's definitely going
to be the doctor's daughter?
You've just answered that question.
Nathan will watch everything.
I think I will pretty much watch everything.
I actually find myself, and this is super weird, avoiding the
Moffatt ones, apart from blink.
Oh, and it might be like a feeling that I need to save them up for
a special occasion or something, or I don't want to waste them, you
know, like, but when it comes to blink, I can't resist that urge.
It's the Gareth Roberts City of Death Rule.
He not city of death, and yet he's watched it a sum total of 3
times because he cannot spoil it by watching it too often.
So interesting.
I mean, blink is probably my favourite.
Carrie Mulligan, every time we name a story that we love, it's
because of supremely superior. female casting and writing.
But also, which should go in to say, I really like historical
settings.
So you give me Pompeii or you give me the Shakespeare code or the
werewolf with Queen Victoria or now you've done it with Agatha
Christie, they are also go-to's for me.
Totally with you on that one, Todd.
I like the fact that we have historical settings, obviously with
the sci-fi element, but you know, characters in there that are
funny and relatable and you I'm often having a whale of a time in
most of those.
See, when we were growing up and watching Doctor Who.
There was a huge run that just avoided historicals, wasn't there?
Like Williams and and, you know, the Davis and era and stuff.
They just weren't that many historical stories.
So exciting to see a Renaissance sitting room, wasn't it?
What came with thumb screws.
Whenever they did do a pseudohistorical, as they were called back
then, they were always good.
Yeah.
Maskman Dragara, the time warrior.
Maskman.
Black Orchard.
Oh, that's cool.
That's great fatigue.
It's drunk.
Mark of the Rani.
Actually, I like Mark.
They glow don't they?
Like strontium 90.
One of the things Russell has introduced in this era are the
Christmas specials.
Yes.
I think you're doing John Wiles a disservice there.
I invited you.
When we feast on Stephen.
What I mean is meat and beef and pork and fat.
Well, he was getting bigger is the role, you've got to admit.
Getting him into that jumper and the celestial toy maker was like
getting toothpaste back in the tube.
Sorry, Todd, do go on.
As an annual event.
And all of them are with David Tennant thus far.
But they all have their moments like the Christmas invasion.
Like that Christmas tree.
I'm going to be killed by a Christmas tree that is still a moment
that is glazed in my head.
You know, in the runaway bride when the doctor doctor's got the
TARDIS coming down the freeway.
Like, I mean, another amazing moment.
Santa's a robot.
The voice of the dam, which is my favourite of those being a
complete disaster movie.
And of course, we've got the next doctor in the end of time.
So they're probably not in my top three.
What are your favourites of these?
And what do you think of having this Christmas event?
I adore it.
Yep.
It's everything I, I, my little secret child inside.
Oh, yes, I love I love this.
The adult self says.
But no, no, this is for this is for our little child.
This is for the little person inside.
I agree with you.
I think they got less as they went on, but that's maybe just the
tyranny of time and the requirements of writing so much.
But I still think Christmas invasion is possibly David's best
performances, the doctor.
Can I put it out there?
And I'm not saying it's because I don't see him for most times.
But he really gets it and it's is exactly the way he plays
Casanova, even to the hair.
It's the same performance at the end.
And I'm thinking, oh, you're a little bit much, but it's just so
refreshing after a year of beautiful Eccleston.
And I mean that, I loved him.
But just to see someone having fun.
He really loves being here.
He's so proud of this moment and he's giving it so much.
How can you not but get carried along with it?
I retweeted something during the week or last week's, uh, where
someone was calling for an immediate inquiry into why there were
no more Doctor Who Christmas specials anymore, like a trial with
uh, you know, prosecutions and perhaps Bellingham.
Like, I just think it's crazy that we don't have them anymore.
And they are a huge part of what made this show as big as
possible.
I mean, what gets Christmas specials?
You know, EastEnders.
Call the midwife.
Yeah, just the biggest shows on TV get Christmas specials.
Miss Brown's boys.
Absolutely true.
For all of its many sins, it's one of the biggest shows.
And so Doctor Who becomes the biggest show on TV.
How does that for a crossover?
God.
No.
Mrs. Morbius's boys.
Same actors.
But they're also my go-to's. even past this era.
Yeah.
Because there's a warmth in them even when there's bad things
happening and there's a joy usually at the end.
And I just, they're also my go-to is when I think about watching
things, it's often I'll come up, and I say to myself, I want to
watch a Christmas special.
I think it's great that they're on and that they're big, fun
family oriented shows which reek of Christmas day.
I think there is a slight structural problem in that it becomes
every 14th episode of Doctor Who is about Christmas, but I think
that becomes less of a problem as it goes on.
The Christmas elements are kind of really jammed into Runaway
Bride.
But then you start getting different takes on things.
So you'll end up with an episode later on, like the snowmen, which
is not very Christmassy at all, but has all the Christmas
trappings of Victorian London and snow and all that.
I think that probably gets it right.
So I get a little bit tired of the Christmas elements, but I'm
with Todd, I think Voyage of the Damned is the best of the Russell
ones.
So good.
I think, um, you know, like even quite late, like Moffat finds new
things to do with the Christmas special and something like last
Christmas, which I think is unjustly overlooked. is Christmassy
and uses Christmas to say a particular thing.
I think it's a great idea and I think we should never have given
that particular time slot up.
And it stops being about Christmas and starts being about big
things that you wouldn't normally do in the series.
So it becomes the rom-com with the husbands of River Song and it
becomes the DC movie with the return of Dr. Mysterio.
And so you save the Christmas slot, not necessarily for a
Christmas episode, but for a big ballsy adventure, you might not
otherwise do.
It helps focus, I think, Stephen Moffatt.
And it helps, I think, Russell sort of reset things after we've
been crying our eyes out, really.
So I think they're a success in every, every way, shape and form.
We haven't talked much about the production side of things.
There's a number of directors that keep coming back in this era.
You're a slim directs at least 11 episodes, Graham Harper 12, James
Strong 7.
Um, and there's others like Elvis Troughton.
I'm just reading a list of names here.
Douglas McKinnon, Charles Palmer, Hetty, McDonald, Colin Teague
you know, James Hawes does 5 back in series one.
Joe O'Hearn.
Are there any directors for you that stand out?
I mean, I've mentioned before, the stellar drop that I think
Graham Harper did back in throughout series 4 and certainly Eurus
coming back at the end, you can see why.
And it just gives this whole era by using similar people.
And most of them, most of them are fairly successful.
It just gives it a flavour that I really now appreciate so much
more.
You never have to worry about the directors in the Russell era.
They always deliver.
There's never a weak link.
You can have different style, you can have different focusses.
You mean from season 2 onwards?
Maybe from block 2 on.
Maybe it's a lot too on.
Yes, I've forgotten, Keith.
Let's not forget.
Keith also has some strengths.
The scene, the very 1st scene that they shot, which is space piggy
in the morgue, is a really effectively shot scene.
So, you know, I think maybe he might have been a little bit out of
his depth, but he does do some good work, but yeah, let's not
include him on the list.
So you'll get people like Graham Harper who just deliver time
after time in any kind of story.
He'll give the unicorn and the wasp one week and then he'll give
you the stolen earth the next week.
But also occasionally you'll get in a director like Hetty McDonald
who just comes in and gives her own spin and Blink is so
beautifully directed and not like a normal Doctor Who story.
A couple of butch.
They're both quite camp, aren't they?
Harper and Hertie.
Very similar styles too, both of them.
I mean, I actually look at their directorial style.
They could both be jumped into an episode of the New Avengers and
get Joanna Lumley's high kicks over the barbed wire fence without
tearing her stockings very easily.
Am I incorrect in thinking that Hetty McDonald actually directed
the seminal gay love story beautiful thing?
Yeah, she did.
So, you know, she was a real fine.
She a feature film director and she comes in and does one episode
of our series and just knocks it straight out of life.
Yeah, we're lucky to get her.
Here are some names.
Julie Gardner, Phil Collinson.
Susie Liggett.
Lorraine Hecase, controller of BBC One, Jane Tranter, controller
of drama commissioning.
Your thoughts on these people?
One of the things that I miss about Doctor Who from about halfway
through the Moffat era onwards?
is just knowing those people.
You know, do you remember the project Who CD, which was that audio
documentary that they did about how Doctor Who started again, and
then Doctor Who Confidential, and then all of those, they released
commentaries as a podcast, like in the week of broadcast, and just
knowing all of those people, to the extent that, you know, that I
would walk 500 miles, thing, the proclaimers thing that they do
with all of the cast and crew.
Like, it never fails to bring tears to my eyes, just because, you
know, Russell created that world, but also created that production
team that we kind of got to know because we were kind of, you know
absurdly obsessed with all of this.
And I miss, I kind of miss that level.
I didn't have access.
I didn't know any of them.
I know maybe one person on that.
We were our friends, though, in the extension.
We were our friends, yeah.
I loved fill and Julie.
I really do.
Yes, I want this spinoff.
Well, think about, you know, like, his dark materials, which I'm
watching at the moment is Jane Trantor and Julie Gardner, and I
think our Ross has worked on that too.
You know, like it's, I miss those people when they all went away, I
think.
The impression you got was that they made Doctor Who for 16 hours
a day and then would gather in each other's lounge rooms and laugh
about the day.
Not unlike this podcast.
They just gather around and talk nonsense about Doctor Who.
And it was beautiful.
And I think that's all to Russell's credit as well because he
attracted those very personable, very competent people to the
series and they all jelled.
The music of Murray Gold. is one other thing that I'd like to talk
about before we head to a conclusion.
For me, knew who is about what he does.
It's a distinction between classic and Yoo Hoo, and I absolutely
adore his scoring of themes of pivotal moments, perhaps telling a
sport how to feel at times, but I really adore it, and I think
Stephen, to keep him on, was the right decision to make at that
time.
And yes, I know some people who listen to the podcast feel that
he's very intrusive at times.
But when I think of Doctor Who, then you who, it's just something
that is the forefront of my mind and I think the man's a genius.
I just think complaining that the music is telling you how to feel
seems like that's a baffling thing to say. you know what I mean?
It's, it's, um, it's what the music is for, and this is a
melodrama, and it's an adventure story, and having something big
and orchestral, like a Star Wars film would have, like, you know
Indiana Jones has.
I think it was absolutely the right choice.
And, you know, there are times where you can see Murray recycling
some music cues and all of that.
Like he's not always bringing his A game and I watched the 11th
hour yesterday and he's clearly decided to just absolutely sort of
amp things up a bit and do an incredible job there.
But even in Russell's era, it's just an indispensable part of the
way the era feels, it's wonderful.
It's another.
Yeah, yeah.
And each story has a different flavour.
So even though he's working to a formula and it's Murray on every
episode.
So much of what I think of these stories in my mind's eye is to do
with how they sound, and that's entirely down to him.
I think he's phenomenal and I would be very happy if he was still
on the show now.
I think he's a good structuralist.
He certainly understands the way an orchestra works.
And maybe this is what film composers need to be and always have
been going right back to corn gold.
He's a good bricker largest.
So whether he's doing caccatourian or Sanson, you know, and
everyone in between, he does it really, obviously, he's quite
exploitative of past composer's work.
But then again, I can't really think of a successful.
John Williams does that too.
I can't think of a successful composer who doesn't do that.
And in his own right.
I mean, I do love, I do love Auntie Flavia's theme.
I love what I can't forgive Timothy Dalton for what he did to
her.
I do love...
Yeah, I love his little mood moments.
He understands what scoring needs to be.
And yes, it is big and it's always full of marshmallow and fat and
cholesterol and all the good things that it should be.
Yeah, I go, he's absolutely right for Russell.
Let's see if he's right for Moffatt, but I'm certainly agree with
you, Tom.
It's what we needed.
And people complain that he scores for characters as well, but
that overlooks the fact that every one of his themes for the
regular characters is amazing.
Yeah brilliant.
That rose theme from series one, which then carries over into
series 2 and then gets referenced onwards.
It even plays when Mickey leaves in the age of steel, is
phenomenally.
Martha's theme is beautiful.
So gorgeous, isn't it?
And he does different things with it.
Donna's theme is really fun and funny. that all the strange
strange creatures thing that was used, you know, on Next Time
trailers and stuff, you know, just so good.
And the most heartbreaking thing he ever did, which is Donna's
theme from turn left, which he then recycles for when she has the
metacrisis and has to have her mind wiped.
And it gets you in the heart every time.
Your final thoughts on the different Tardis teams of this era.
Eccleston and Piper.
I think they're both magnificent together, just absolutely
perfect.
It was so exciting, so different from what we expected.
I think.
I'm so different from anything that had ever happened before but
just brilliant.
It feels so right.
And seeing Christopher, perhaps, in those final 5 episodes, I
think he really nails it at the end of that season.
And, and, you know, through Fate or whatever, having that one
season with him, I think in the end has served the show so well.
I was living in London at the time, and in the week that the 1st
episode went out, Rose, I walked into Waterloo Station, and there
at the end of the station, was a massive poster of Christopher
Eccleston and Billy Piper in character, looking back towards the
camera with the Tartar stores behind them, and the motto, I think
do you want to come with me?
And I stood there looking at it and I thought, these guys have
always inhabited these characters.
I'm here for it right now and I haven't seen it.
You can see Eccleston's delight in just how good a performer Billy
really is. right from the word go.
I think that gave him his impetus.
Piper and Tennant?
I mean, people have said before in this episode that they don't
know that they work all that well together, but I do think that
there is a reason that they're regarded as iconic.
And, you know, it's the relationship that people remember from
this era maybe more than any other.
I think there's something to be said for how much fun they're
having.
And I think that it's important in Doctor Who to show that.
Remember we were complaining about the Hinge Cliff era and the way
Sarah's being dragged through corridors full of dead bodies.
I remember ever complaining about the Hinchcliffe era.
Being pushed down the stairs and blinded.
Yeah, yeah.
So it's nice to see them having fun, even if they do seem rather
smug.
Yeah, and don't get me wrong on that.
I think that the chemistry between David and Billy is so amazing
that they are rightly iconic.
In fact, that's even referenced in the series in my favourite 2
parter of the era, where they are the stuff of legends at the
end.
They even say it on screen.
I think it's problem that the character doesn't necessarily work
as well with the 10th doctor as with the ninth, but they easily
overcome that.
Yeah, I think what you're saying there.
You're comparing it to the relationship the year before.
And if you didn't have that the year before, you wouldn't be
saying, oh, they're not as good because they are extremely all
together.
Freema and David.
I think it's really underrated and I think she's really underrated
and I really love that character so much more.
And when she leaves on her own terms.
I think it really says something to his character.
And I think they actually work a lot better than perhaps what even
David or people think.
Yeah.
I think the it's the best leaving scene of the era because it
isn't motivated by science fiction reasons.
And so there's a real truth to it.
I think that's great.
We've said before and, you know, everyone says, oh, if only she
hadn't been in love with a doctor or whatever.
But I think it's a forgivable mistake because, you know, Russell
very definitely wants there to be adults in the Tartars who are
attracted to one another and stuff like that and making the doctor
kind of a figure that you don't have those feelings for isn't what
this year is going for at all.
So I can forgive it.
But yeah.
And I think she's wonderful.
I wonder if it was Russell's idea to make us dislike the doctor a
little bit.
Because he's just so good at this.
Russell is also really dark and his humour is that kind of person
will get out there winkle picker and poke any situation.
I'm sure he's a terror to have at a party or in an intimate
friendship because he would just keep going that little bit to get
at your truth.
A lot of writers are like this.
There doesn't tend to be a lot of compunction for, I hope this
won't make you feel bad at the end, but I need to know how you
feel about this.
I can see him being you know, I can see him being quite a
difficult partner. in the home situation.
No, I think they quite deliberately did that too.
And when he saw when he saw David's reaction, which was not
dissimilar to Tom and Lou Jamison's thing.
I only thought, aha, I've got that again.
I'm going to work with this I think it was probably wicked enough
to actually exploit that.
It's not really very fair to Freema and, you know, my opinions on
this. ventured before, but I don't, yeah, I think it works out
very well and certainly Freema triumphs at the end of it.
That's a fantastic leaving scene that she has, probably one of the
best of all time.
Don't need you.
Yeah, yeah.
I think it's the human nature problem where human nature is really
great and you look at it while you're watching and you think, well
this might be the best of the season, except blink then comes
along.
I think Freema and David work really well and Martha's great
character.
However, they've already had a sample of how David works with
Catherine and that is just that little bit better, even though the
doctor and Freema is fantastic.
And so it's an embarrassment of riches.
So, of course, Catherine Tate and David Tennant.
I mean, stuff of legends.
Yeah.
It's that thing.
It's Colin Baker needs Evelyn so that he can't bully her because
she's immune to that.
You know, John Pertie needs Joe Grant because he's super
unlikeable until Joe comes along and then it's clear that he loves
her and so he must be a good guy.
What David Tennant needs is someone to make fun of him.
And she does such a great job of that.
And on top of that, to our absolute astonishment.
She's an incredibly good actor.
And so she's able to sort of carry all the emotional sort of
things.
And I'd much rather watch Catherine crying in the TARDIS than
David Tennant, I think.
I think, um, it may be, we talked about it on the podcast, the
only time apart from William Russell and William Hartner, where we
had co-leads.
Catherine Tate is that strong and that well-known and famous that
she could come in and own the series and not take away from David
because they work really well together, but you could watch
Donahue quite easily.
I think Janet Fielding put up a good fight.
Do we have any Jenny Laird awards or Bonnie Langford nominations
for this era?
I mean, I give the money length it to Russell T. Davies because he
is that good and I just didn't necessarily see it all at that time
and his ability to showrun to write interesting characters from
you know, secretaries to companions, to be able to come up with
scripts, polish other people's scripts, to have the right, the
serendipity of events or the right casting.
It's just incredible.
No wonder he was so tired there at the end, but, you know, for 4
seasons, building and building and building and writing, just, yeah
amazing.
I give that to Julie and Phil as well.
Yeah, it's a triumvirate.
Yeah, I think so.
This is still my favourite era of the show.
Like absolutely of the entire show, including the classic series.
I don't think Doctor Who had been as good as this up until now, and
I don't think it's ever been as good as this again.
I think that we didn't deserve someone as skilled at television
writing and production as Russell and someone who knows and loves
Doctor Who and who is writing our memory of Doctor Who rather than
a direct continuation of Doctor Who.
He's writing a sort of Doctor Who, that's composed of all of the
things that we love and remember and all of the things that really
worked and I think it just came off magnificently.
So he gets my Bonnie Langford, I think.
You know, without these 45 years, we would not have the next 10
like if he had not been as half as talented, the show would not
have survived changes of showrunners. absolutely right.
Can I give a specific Bonnie Langford to Catherine Tate and the
casting of?
Yeah, because Catherine Tate was stunt casting to an extent, but
it proves that J&T had the right instinct because Bonnie Langford
back in the day was the same kind of stunt casting.
It was someone who had a profile, who was brought in to sort of be
popular with the masses, and it didn't quite come off because of
various things at the time.
We didn't have a script editor who was on board with that.
The program itself wasn't popular enough to sort of withstand that
external barrage.
But I think they were the same idea and Catherine Tate shows how
well it can work. and could have worked with Bonnie.
And, you know, maybe they could bring Bonnie back now because
she's such a proven dramatic actress.
I'm sure that she would have the same positive effect.
I missed having Lou Jamieson.
Louise Jamison in this series.
I really did.
I was thinking there were so many opportunities where she could
have appeared, not necessarily as Leila, would have liked her as
one of the mothers.
She could have been scribbling away behind Rastalon and then...
Well, actually, no, I do have a little quickie question.
What's the Claire Bloom character meant to be our Susan?
Was that actually written for Carol Anne?
I think Russell has said that he thinks it's the doctor's mother.
Yeah.
And he has deliberately just not said anything in order to leave
that open for people to play with, I think.
I think it's post-regeneration Engen.
Yay That's true.
It could be runsable for all we, you know.
All right, Snorg Mary avoid.
The Lord President, Josiah A. Smith, Sean Temple.
Oh, you'd have to Snog Sean.
PC. what's his name from the bill?
No, you'd have to marry Sean.
I mean, you know, like, Donna has terrible taste in Man Up until
this point.
But, um, he does seem very nice and he's good for her.
So I think that he would be a good one to marry.
Um, I would avoid the nasmiths because um, terrible.
Because they are...
Just not one, you'd have to snog the other.
All of them, you'd have to snog all of them.
And I would definitely snog Timothy Dalton because he's James
Bond.
James Bond.
But they'd left him with his fluffy morning hair.
There's nothing to him.
He's obviously turned up 5 minutes.
Remember, give me that.
Oh, okay, we're doing King Arthur.
That's the glove.
No love.
Just do whatever you'd usually do.
Oh, points.
Yes, that disappointing giggle.
There you go.
He'd shag the living daylights out here.
Hey.
So we're about to embark on a new era in series 5 as we sit here
right now.
What are your thoughts, expectations or what you hope to discover
in the next series or where do you sit with it?
I'm looking forward to Clair Foy as the new companion.
And some lovely sets and some really interesting badinage and
close and just to know how harmonious relationship in the Tartars
can actually be.
I'm looking forward to seeing Moffat fail.
And I say this, as in what we've seen so far, is Stephen coming in
and doing one or 2 episodes per season and giving us of his best
because he's got all the time in the world to do them and he's
coming in and doing one or 2 episodes per year.
He's giving of his best.
He doesn't have all the problems of running the show and dealing
with other writers.
I'm looking forward to seeing what he will do when he's placed
under pressure and what he will deliver.
And I think we'll get some episodes in the next few seasons, which
are not Moffat at his best, but which are stunningly interesting.
So not predicting any cracks.
I want to see an episode from him where he's not firing on all
cylinders and just how interesting that will be. expect your wish
will be granted.
It is the thing where Moffat is more ambitious and more
experimental.
Far more, you know, beyond the just original kind of feat of
bringing the show back.
Like now the show's back.
It's been going for 5 years.
He is much, much more ambitious and he has a completely different
take.
And I think his highs are higher and his lows are lower.
I wonder if that will feel like a panic response, though.
I think there's all sorts of panic responses over the next few
years.
I think that's very clearly a thing that happened too.
And so that stuff's going to be terribly interesting.
But I actually think that Moffat, Moffat's approach is very
interesting indeed, and I'm really looking forward to getting into
it.
For me, I guess with series 5, I always used to say, oh, series 4
and 5 are about the same, whether that proves to be in terms of my
enjoyment, the same thing.
I guess the focus I'll be looking at is Amy Pond and Karen
Gillan's performance, which I don't universally love, and I've
always loved Matt Smith and Arthur Darvel.
So I'm going to be really focussing on her next year to see what
she's delivering and how the character of Amy is written as well
throughout that series.
So that's where I'm at with things.
So we've reached the end, there's only but one snog Marrier void
left, and thanks to Colin Neal, we had a chat about this, and here
it go, Snog, Mary, avoid.
Jackie Tyler, Supreme Commander Servolan, Emperor Philippa
Giorgio.
Nathan.
So, well, Emperor Philippa Giorgio is, of course, my cousin-in-law
cousin Michelle.
And I think she is actually really pretty great.
But I'm just not a huge fan of her management style.
And, you know, it is possible to disappoint the supreme commander
and live.
I'm not quite so sure that it's possible to disappoint Philippa
Georgia in the same way.
So I'd avoid her.
I would snog the supreme commander because I have a feeling that
she would very much like me to do that again.
And so I would absolutely marry Jackie Tyler.
You could do much worse than Jackie Tyler as supreme commander of
the Terran Federation, couldn't you?
She'd have those outer planets in line.
Well, dear listener, that's all we have time for this week.
We'll be back in a few weeks' time with our coverage of series
five, starting with Matt Smith's first story as the doctor, the
11th hour.
In the meantime, you can find us wherever you get your podcasts
and you can keep up with us at Flightthrough Entirety on Facebook
at FTE podcast on Twitter, and on our website
FlightthroughEntirety.com, where you'll find links to our other
podcasts, Bondfinger, and Jody into Terror.
Until next time, remember that some people live more in 20 years
than others do in 80.
It's not the time that matters.
It's the person.
Thank you very much for listening and good night.
See you soon.
Good night.
Good then.
That was Flight 3 Entirety, starring Todd Bilby, Nathan Bottomley
Peter Griffiths, and Richard Stone.
Themer ancient by Cameron Lamb, Strings performance by Jane
Alberg.
This episode, Technical Virtuosity, was recorded on the 27th of
December 2020, and released on the 8th of January 2021.
Russell D. Davis, Channel 4 drama.
It's a sin will be broadcast at the end of this month, and we're
awaiting it with a mixture of both excitement and dread.
Let's look after one another while we watch it.
Okay?
So I guess I'll do the thing.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Yeah.
Closing statement?
I don't think I haven't done, yeah, and I think we've covered it
haven't we?
I can't think of anything we haven't said.
Over the last 60 episodes. 68 episodes.
And let's not forget. how great Camille Kudry is as Jackie
Tomlin.
Without her, we would not have...
That depended on Camille.
That was all right. was the right thing to do.
It's that thing.
It's that thing where, you know, if it wasn't for Barbara Wright.
We wouldn't have the show and I just think if it wasn't for Kamil
Kaduri, we wouldn't have the show.
Yes, I think that would be a tag.
I talked about family earlier, weren't we?
We don't really mean the other families.
We mean Jackie.
Yeah.
Oh, no, I'd like I mean, I mean the other family as well, but
Jackie is Jackie.
I still want I still want to have drinks with Francine.
She's in Bridgerton. you know about this?
Oh, so it's like a sort of crappy romance novel set in the regency
period.
It all just dropped on Netflix.
It's colourblind casting.
And so the male lead, the Duke is a very, very handsome black
man.
And a Joa is in it as well. as Lady Danford or something.
And my friend Robert has watched nearly the whole series since it
dropped 2 days ago.
And he just says she's magnificent in it.
So I'm quite excited.
Oh, I'm glad she got work since the last we saw her.
We're sheltering under a table.
She's in cucumber, remember?
Oh, she, oh, and she's great.
Again, sort of terrible.
She's in Julius Caesar, isn't she?
She did Julius Caesar in London.
Oh, okay.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
She's really good.
And let's not forget the videos that the Russell mums did during
lockdown and HR is so beautiful in them.
Oh, look them up. are so warm and gorgeous.
What was that just with Russell as a little COVID thing for us
all?
Yeah, I can't remember exactly what it was.
They sort of did like 2 or 3 minutes to camera just basically
telling people to keep their spirits up and we love you, Doctor
Who fans, and it is so heartwarming.
Nostril.
No, she's very cool. right.
We're actors, we need.
They do.
Well, dear listener, that's all we have time for this week.